


RUSTED

by provencepuss



Series: Busted Dusted Rusted [3]
Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 16:11:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/provencepuss/pseuds/provencepuss





	RUSTED

 

 

** RUSTED  **

 

 

The kid held up his find and fingered it carefully before going back to his daily rummage in the dumpster near his home.

The area had never recovered from the each successive new glitch in the economy. The whole neighborhood seemed to reel punch drunk from every blow. Other parts of the city got facelifts and metro projects and new parks; but this backwater of humanity was just like it had always been. The flea pits were still full of drunks and addicts. The drunks were still on wine or whisky or whatever they could find; but the addicts had moved on from heroin to crack and methadone. The cocaine market had moved to the neighborhoods where the rich lived.

 

Corpses were less picky.

 

The kid saw something under a trash sack and moved the black plastic to one side. It looked like a dummy from one of the stores in the block across the street; it was wearing the same kind of latex jumpsuit that he’d seen him mom pull on one day when she was late home from one job and had to change to go to the next.  He thought his mom would like this one – it was a nice bright red. He pulled at one of the feet and leaped out of the dumpster like he’d been burned.

 

He knew where to go.

 

********** 

 

Huggy had put on a little weight but he was still the man with his finger on the pulse of the city.  Times had been good to him and The Pits was now one of the most popular bars in Bay City. The food was good; a savvy blend of whole-foods and a nod to the city population’s varied ethnic diet.

 

The kid slipped into the bar just as Huggy was opening the door for the lunchtime custom. “Hey you can’t come in here kid – you’re a minor.”

“I came to see you. You are Huggy Bear aren’t you?”

Huggy looked at the kid carefully.  His flaxen blond hair and pale blue eyes made Huggy stop and stare. “How do you know that?”

“Ali…my mom talked about you a lot. She always said that if I was in big trouble I should go find you.”

Huggy led him into the bar. “I guess that means you are in trouble.” The kid swallowed. Huggy put a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you tell me your name; then we can talk about the problem.”

“Ricky.”

It was Huggy’s turn to swallow. It added up. The kid was about ten years old and Alice had disappeared from the scene not long after Starsky was shot. Story was she was pregnant and didn’t want the father to know.  Huggy heard a few rumors about that and looking at the kid he figured they were right.

“Your mom’s name Alice? How is she?”

“She’s dead.”

Huggy spotted the tear and wiped it with his finger.  “When did she die?”

“I don’t know, I just found her.” 

Huggy took him upstairs to the apartment that doubled as an office. He switched on the TV and gave Ricky the remote. He pointed to a shelf, “The tapes there are OK for a kid. Stay here. I’m going to make a few calls.”

 

**************** 

 

The trouble with being a Lieutenant meant you had to spend more time behind a desk and Starsky hated sitting on his butt all day. He was griping about the paper work that he and Hutch were working on; a big case for the DA to push to the top of the court schedules.

“I’d rather be on a stake out.”

Hutch raised an eyebrow and a finger. “Well if you hadn’t been so determined to take the exams we could still be out there.”

Starsky stared at him. “Don’t raise that finger at me Hutch! What else did you think I was going to do while I was out there getting straight?  And at least I knew you were safe at home studying instead of tilting at windmills.”

Hutch was about to ask what he meant when the phone rang and Starsky reached out to answer it without even looking up from what he was doing.

“Starsky.    Yeah hi Huggy….where?...” He listened to something Huggy was telling him and turned away from Hutch. “Ok we’re on our way.” He was already on his feet as he put the receiver back onto its cradle. “C’mon Sancho; time to get back on the trusty steed.”

“Quixote.”  Hutch pronounced it correctly; aspirating the ‘x’. “Huh?”

“It was Don Quixote who went for the windmills Starsk.”  His partner bowed and ushered him out of the door then placed a well-aimed but harmless kick on his butt.

“I know that but, I’m sure as hell not going be Sancho Panza!”  Hutch decided that whichever of them was the knight this time discretion was the better part of valor and said nothing.

 

Starsky’s new car was parked in his magic spot.  It was the newest model from Jeep, a Cherokee that Merle had transformed with a paint job that even Hutch admired. The car was deep blue and a discerning eye picked up a slight hint of glitter as it moved. But once the car was parked under a streetlight at night the glitter turned into a thousand subtle stars.  It was Merle’s little joke. “Stars in the sky for my buddy, Starsky.” Needless to say Merle had paid attention to the engine too and Hutch clicked the rally-style safety harness into place before Starsky hit the gas.

“Where are we going?”

“Huggy’s; he’s got a kid there says he found his mom dead.”

Hutch swallowed. These things never got easier to handle. Starsky’s silence made him wonder if there was something he hadn’t been told.

 

****************

 

 

Huggy was waiting for them in the alley. “The kid’s upstairs,” he said to Starsky.  Hutch went to follow but Huggy held him back. “Let Dave talk to him; he knows where the kid’s coming from, remember?  I’ll tell you what I know.” Hutch nodded his agreement; he would never be able to get the image of Starsky with tears in his eyes unable to go to Molly as she wept over her slain father in an alley. Hutch took over with Molly to save his friend’s heartache; the compliment was about to be returned.

 

Starsky walked into the room quietly; he stepped over to a chair and sat down to look at the kid.

“My name’s Dave and I used to know your mom.” _And I still know your dad._

Ricky stared ahead but he wasn’t watching the screen. Starsky knew what he was doing, he did it himself; you stare at something hard enough you don’t see the images burning holes in your mind. But the tears were rolling down Ricky’s cheeks and Starsky couldn’t let that continue.  He held out a clean white handkerchief

(Hutch called it his damsel in distress kit) and waited in silence while Ricky repaired the damage as best he could.

“It’s Ok to cry Ricky. It takes a real man to cry whatever some dumbass might have told you.”

Ricky handed him back the hankie and Starsky folded it neatly and placed it on the table where Ricky could pick it up if he needed it.

“You know my mom?”

“Knew.    I haven’t seen her for years; not since she...uh…moved to a new job.” If Ricky didn’t know what Alice did for a living Starsky wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. Not now anyway. “Huggy says you found her dead.  You want to tell me where?”

“In a dumpster in the alley near our house.” 

Starsky swallowed hard. “What were you doing in the dumpster Ricky?”

“I find things in there sometimes. Toys and stuff to trade and…”

Starsky leaned forward from the waist; keeping his back straight. “How old are you Ricky, ten? Eleven?”

“Ten.” (He sniffed and reached for the hankie again).

“I was thirteen when my dad died. He was killed and I saw it. It was in an alley near our apartment. So if I say ‘I understand how you feel’ you know that I really do.  Now some people are going to say that to you Ricky and you’re going to want to yell ‘no you don’t!’ but remember that they are just trying to be kind. But I _do_ know Ricky and that’s why I came up here to talk to you and my partner is talking to Huggy. So you and I are going to sit here and talk about your mom and all the good times you had with her and all the nice things you remember and then, when you’re ready you’ll tell me about how you found her and you won’t even notice you’re doing it.”

Ricky looked up at him and found himself drawn to Starsky’s deep gaze; he felt like he couldn’t let go of it. It was a lifeline. He started to talk about his mom and all the things they did together and soon he was telling Starsky about the ‘catwoman’ outfit and how at first he thought that it was a dummy in the dumpster and how the outfit was like his mom’s and she would like it.

“But it was my mom; it wasn’t a dummy. It was my mom in there and her head is like it is round the wrong way.” He burst into sobs and Starsky drew him into his arms. He enfolded the child and let him cry himself out.

 

****************

 

There was no easy way for Huggy to break it to Hutch. He had carried a flame for Alice for so long and even now the pain showed in his eyes.  Not for the first time Huggy asked himself what it was that drew Hutch (knowingly or not) to hookers.

“And the kid upstairs is her son?”

“Yes.”

Hutch ran his hand over his face and stood up but Huggy stopped him with a slight shake of his head. “Let Starsky handle it Hutch.”

Five minutes later Starsky called to Hutch to join him

“I’m going to call this one in, Hutch.  It’s too close to home for both of us.”

Hutch looked at Starsky’s face and saw the reflection in his deep blue eyes of the painful memories he had lived with since he was thirteen.  Then he looked a the child and his heart felt as if it would burst out of his mouth and scream with pain. The blond hair and blue eyes were clue enough and Hutch knew that Starsky had seen more than anyone else could have seen. Their eyes met and Starsky nodded. “Spitting image of his dad, isn’t he?”

 

Hutch was frozen to the spot; he wanted to pick his son up in his arms but something held him back.

It was Ricky who broke the ice. He looked up at Hutch and held out his hand to reveal the object that he had been gripping ever since he arrived in The Pits. Hutch took it and grinned.

“Hey look at this Starsky.”

He held out the toy car, its red and white paint was damaged with time but the shape was easily recognizable.

Starsky chuckled, “I guess we’d better take it to Merle, it’s kind of rusted.”

 

 


End file.
